We need a real recovery. That’s what Mitt Romney said during the campaign, and he was right. Five years since the start of the Great Recession, unemployment is still far too high. It’s not for a lack of optimism among policymakers. As Evan Soltas pointed out, the Federal Reserve keeps predicting that prosperity is just around the corner, only to find it’s not. Catchup growth is the new Godot.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke used the term “fiscal cliff,” it quickly became the newest Washington buzzphrase. As the deadline to avert the cliff nears, it has overtaken the European debt crisis as the most talked-about story in the financial media. The fiscal cliff refers to the enactment of a number of laws that would, if not changed before Jan. 1, 2013,

Fiscal cliff would drive the U.S. economy back into recession before end of 2013, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office said. Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that the most harmful consequences of the fiscal cliff, a fully armed and operational fiscal cliff would cost us 3.4 million jobs.

President Barack Obama handily defeated Gov. Mitt Romney and won himself a second term Tuesday after a bitter and historically expensive race that was primarily fought in just a handful of battleground states. Networks project that Obama beat Romney after nabbing the crucial state of Ohio.